- Nejdra ‘Netty’ Nance grew up believing Ann Pettway was her mother
- When applying for health insurance, she discovered her birth certificate was fake
- Online research led her to uncover she was Carlina White, a missing child abducted from a hospital in 1987
Growing up, Nejdra ‘Netty’ Nance was very close to her mother. It was just the two of them at home, and Annugetta Pettway, who everyone called Ann, was described as a strict but good mum.
Ann, who’d had some trouble with the law in the early ’90s, had turned her life around for her daughter.
When Ann announced she was having another a child – a boy – the then 11-year-old Netty was ecstatic.
And after Trevon was born, Netty doted on her baby brother.
Just six years later, Netty discovered she was pregnant too.
Her first priority was health insurance, but when Netty asked her mother for her birth certificate to fill out the application, Ann refused.
She promised her daughter she’d sort it out.
But Netty didn’t want to wait, so after locating the certificate herself among her mother’s personal documents, she headed off to the insurance office.
It was there that an insurance officer explained to Netty why her application was being rejected – and why Ann had been so hesitant to hand over her birth certificate. It was a fake.
‘Netty confronted her mother.’
Netty confronted her mother and, through sobs, Ann confessed she wasn’t Netty’s biological mother.
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Ann claimed Netty’s biological mum was a drug addict who’d abandoned her, and that Ann had saved her by taking Netty in as her own.
Netty wasn’t convinced. And when she tried to dig deeper into the truth, her mum insisted she didn’t remember anything more.
Worried about how the stress would affect her unborn child, Netty decided to let it go.
In 2006 she gave birth to a girl she named Samani, and was then too consumed with motherhood to think of anything else.
A couple of years later, Netty and her daughter moved interstate.
With her little one growing up fast, Netty’s desire to meet her birth parents was renewed.
Turning to Google for answers, she found the website of the Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
Netty spent hours scrolling through pictures of missing children.
Then one day she came across a ‘Missing’ poster for a baby born in 1987.
Goosebumps rose on Netty’s arms.
The baby looked just like her.
Netty contacted the centre and was told they’d be in touch soon.
It wasn’t until January 2011 that a woman named Joy White was told the news she’d been waiting 23 years to hear.
Her daughter, who’d disappeared at 19 days old, had been found.
Nejdra Nance was actually Carlina White – and she’d been abducted 23 years earlier.
Joy was 16 when she found out she was expecting with her 22-year-old boyfriend Carl Tyson.
The couple welcomed their daughter, Carlina, on July 15, 1987.
When Carlina was just under three weeks old, Joy rushed her bub to hospital with a fever.
Doctors determined the bub had developed an infection.
Overwhelmed, Joy broke down in tears.
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When a woman in a nurse’s uniform pulled out tissues and comforted her, Joy took them gladly.
‘The nurse reassured Joy that Carlina was in good hands.’
The woman, who Joy assumed was a hospital staff member, suggested she go home to get some rest.
She reassured Joy that Carlina was in good hands.
Exhausted, Joy thanked her and went home for a shower and a nap.
That night, Joy was woken by two police officers at her door.
Her baby was missing.
When Joy and Carl got to the hospital, they and the staff tried to work out what had happened.
It was then Joy remembered the woman who’d been dressed like a nurse.
Joy was certain she was the one who’d taken her baby.
A search was launched and the media ran the story non-stop in the local news.
Nearly 100 kilometres away, no-one noticed Ann – who’d faked being a nurse – getting off a train with a newborn that fitted Carlina’s description.
When she introduced her baby to her family, they didn’t question it.
Ann had been gone for months, and after having had several devastating miscarriages, she’d made her dream of becoming a mother a reality.
‘Joy never gave up hope of finding her daughter.’
Meanwhile, Joy and Carl’s lives were ruined and they eventually spilt.
But Joy never gave up hope of finding her daughter.
So when her phone rang with the news Carlina had been found, Joy was overjoyed.
Their reunion was emotional and Netty was elated to learn she also had two siblings – Sheena, then 18, and Sydney, 21.
For a while everything was amazing.
But Ann had committed a serious crime.
While Netty understood Joy and Carl’s pain and desire for justice, she didn’t want to see Ann go to prison.
Charged with kidnapping, in February 2012 Annugetta Pettway pleaded guilty, and was later sentenced in the Manhattan Federal Court to 12 years in jail.
Netty wrote to Ann regularly during her prison term, which ended with her release on April 2021.
Netty legally changed her name from Nejdra to Carlina.
And while she could have let the whole experience ruin her, instead Carlina turned the situation into a positive.
Speaking to The Mirror in 2014, she said, ‘Now I have two mums and two dads and my life is richer now because of that.’
